Question

Simple question, if you use the Html Helper from ASP.NET MVC Framework 1 it is easy to set a default value on a textbox because there is an overload Html.TextBox(string name, object value). When I tried using the Html.TextBoxFor method, my first guess was to try the following which did not work:

<%: Html.TextBoxFor(x => x.Age, new { value = "0"}) %>

Should I just stick with Html.TextBox(string, object) for now?

Answer 1

It turns out that if you don’t specify the Model to the View method within your controller, it doesn’t create a object for you with the default values.

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ViewResult Create()
{
  // Loads default values
  Instructor i = new Instructor();
  return View("Create", i);
}

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ViewResult Create()
{
  // Does not load default values from instructor
  return View("Create");
}